


We Walk The Same Line

by poisontaster



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-24
Updated: 2006-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-22 11:26:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4833605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisontaster/pseuds/poisontaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was supposed to be like every other hunt. (MotW type story, set an indeterminate time in S1)</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Walk The Same Line

**Author's Note:**

> _If you lose your faith, babe, you can have mine; and if you're lost, I'm right behind. 'Cause we walk the same line. –"We Walk the Same Line" by Everything But the Girl._

It takes Dean nearly an hour to find a way down to Sam, skidding and half falling down galleries and nearly vertical down-slopes of wet, slick rock. "Stupid, stupid, stupid…" he chants under his breath. He isn’t sure if he means himself or Sam.

"Sam?" he calls, for the dozenth time, struggling and floundering to keep the edge of desperation out of his voice as he flickers his flashlight beam over the dripping stone, looking for a way through. _"Sam?"_

"Here," Sam answers. Does he sound more breathless, fainter than the last time, Dean wonders crazily as he orients through the confused tangle of echoes and the constant _plink_ of water. Dean thinks he sounds closer, in any case—though he's made that mistake before, when he had to detour around a drop-shaft across crumbling ledges of limestone and shale. "Dean—it's not dead. It got away."

Dean curses under his breath and forces his hand to loosen on the butt of the gun in his other hand. "Dude, what kind of Winchester are you?" he jeers. There. Was that…? He moves closer to the pocket of shadow off to his left, probing with the weak flashlight beam. When this is over, he's going to blow one of the credit cards on a couple of the good arc-sodium flashlights, the ones with beams like Hollywood spotlights. "First you let that thing knock you ass over teakettle and then you don't even kill it? Shame, Sammy, shame."

Sam's laugh comes to him, strained but genuine. "I suppose you would have beaten it to death with… _ow_ …with your broken leg, huh?"

"Damn straight." The shadow recedes from the glow of the flashlight, grudgingly revealing the passageway it previously concealed. It's more or less the right direction; Dean puts his back to the stone and proceeds as fast as he dares, given the possibilities of ambush and breaking his own leg on the uneven, slippery rock. " _And_ I'd have had it cleaned and skinned by now. But _I_ am a real Winchester man."

"And what does that make me?" Sam definitely sounds breathless; Dean tries not to think about what that means.

"A punk and a pussy, far as I can te.." he answers. From elsewhere, the creature roars, loud and furious. Dean halts, hand sweating on the gun's grip, and closes his eyes. It's been years since Dad made him track by sound alone and the way sound crisscrosses across the stone makes it virtually impossible to get a good fix anyway, but he tries. It's freezing cold and he's sweating like a fat man in high summer, making his hands slick and gluing his shirt to his back.

"Dean?" Sam shouts. There's an edge of panic underlying the pain in his voice.

"Yeah," Dean shouts back and hopes the creature doesn't have any better sense of hearing than he does. "Don't get your panties in a knot."

"So…" Sam's breath catches audibly. "So says the man with the gun…"

 _Son-of-a…_ "You dropped your freaking gun?"

It wasn't supposed to go down like this.

***

"It doesn't sound like anything we've run into before," Sam says doubtfully, paging through his sheaf of handwritten notes. The whole motel room smells like mildew and must and Dean fights the urge to sneeze.

"What are you talking about? It's like _every_ other thing we've run into before." Dean squints down the barrel of the Smith  & Wesson before attacking it with the brush again. "It kills people, we kill it. It's like…" He waves the hand with the rag. "Walking on cake."

Sam sighs and combs his hand through his hair. "Dean. Look at this." He waves at the papers. "The date pattern's all wrong for it to be a were, it can't be a ghoul, it's not another Wendigo…"

"Sam, we'll be dead and so will everyone in this town if you're going to sit there and name off everything it's _not_ ," Dean says, putting the gun aside and glaring at Sam.

"Okay, but that's my _point_ , Dean." Sam looks tired for having spent half the night at the laptop or trolling through the books he'd "borrowed" from the library. "I don't know what it is. I have no idea what it is."

Dean shrugs. "Then we'll figure it out."

Sam sighs again, deeper and more irritated. The "oh God, Dean" sigh. "Look, I know that going off half-cocked is your specialty and all…" Dean snickers and Sam rolls his eyes. "Oh God, Dean, can you be an adult for like… _fifteen minutes_? My point is that we don't know what we're dealing with. Doesn't that worry you? Like…at all?"

"Sam, look." Dean leans an elbow on the table. "Everything we've ever run into, everything in Dad's journal or any of these books…" he waves, "somebody had to be the first one. It had to be somebody's first time, first monster, first ghost. Whatever. We'll figure it out. Just not…from any of these books."

Sam's looking at him. Dean thinks it's the "I do not _believe_ you" look, but it's also a lot like the "you are such a moron I can't believe we're related", so it's hard to tell. Even Sammy's eyes can only express so much with the one glare. Finally, Sam says, "You're looking forward to this." It's not a question. "You're _enjoying_ this."

Dean scratches the back of his head. "Well… Just a little." He puts his other elbow down on the table, leaning towards Sam and giving him his most charming grin. "C'mon. It'll be _fun_."

***

"I fell thirty feet!" Sam sounds so offended that for a minute, Dean wants to laugh. "Not to mention the giant… _thing_ that was trying to chew my face off at the time. So _yes_ , I dropped my gun."

Dean tried not to think about the images that summoned, concentrating on the task at hand. The through shaft is narrowing; he hopes it doesn't become too tight to get through or peter out entirely. It's already taking too long to get to Sam.

_He's okay. He's going to be okay. Just keep it together, Dean. You can get him out of this._

"More like twenty-five," he calls back, brushing one side of the tunnel with his back and the other side with the toes of his boots as he edges along. His breath sounds really loud, echoing off the slanting stone walls and he finds himself holding his breath to hear until his lungs throb and spots dance in front of his eyes.

"What?"

"More like twenty-five fe… Never mind." It's a tight squeeze and Dean's got to shuck his rucksack and jacket and suck his gut in as much as he can, ribs scraping the whole way, but he makes it through into a room where the echoes of his voice spread out and multiply again and the flashlight can't make out the far wall. He doesn't want to ask the question. He needs to ask the question. "And with that face, how much of a loss was it really going to be?"

Dean shines the light up, trying to tell if there's a ceiling or whether it's the drop shaft Sam and the creature fell down, locked together. His sense of direction's always been pretty good, but the darkness and the weight of all that stone overhead has a way of disorienting even the strongest senses and all he needs is to lose his way while Sam could be… While Sam is…

_Don't, Dean. Don't you even._

And so he doesn't.

It's been quiet too long. He needs to ask the question. He doesn't want to ask the question. Dammit.

"Hey! Sam! Sing out or something." The beam of the flashlight doesn't hit stone, but that proves nothing. Dean puts his hand out—the one with the flashlight, because he's damned if he's going to tie up his gun hand—and starts following the wall right.

A laugh, cracked and hurting, but closer than before. Dear God, closer than before, please. "I thought you hate my singing, Dean."

"Well, that's because you can't sing," Dean says reasonably. Thirty, forty feet and his questing foot hits nothing but open air. He shines the flashlight down and sees the curve of water worn stone, rippled and glittering. Beyond it, there's nothing but darkness like a winding sheet of utter black too dense to be penetrated.

"Hey…is that you?" Sam's voice lifts, shaking with effort. "I thought I saw…" Dean swings the light again, less purposeful, his heart beating hard in his chest. "Yeah. Dean. I can see you. Or I think that's you."

"How far?" Dean turns the beam to the chasm's edge, skirting it carefully. All they need is for him to fall down and break something himself.

"Don't know. Ten? Fifteen feet?"

Too far to jump, then. Not that Dean would jump blind. Well, okay, maybe he _would_ , but only because it's Sam. "Okay, dude? Next time, I'm carrying the damn rope."

"You weren't even going to _bring_ rope," Sam protests.

"And now we see why!" Dean skirts a melted and fragile section of the edge, and the cluster of phlegm colored stalagmites that's grouped near it like calcified toadstools, glaring at the place where Sam's voice seems to come from. "Fat lot of good it's doing us."

"Your logic stuns me, Dean."

Dean grins. "I am pretty stunning," he says.

"And vain. Let's not forget vain."

"Oh Sammy, your jealousy is showing."

"So is my irritation." Sam coughs and then groans, quickly stifled.

He needs to ask the question. He _really_ does not want to ask the question.

"I'm coming," he says, more softly. The drop shaft's edge curves smoothly and Dean's flashlight beam washes across more charcoal colored stone below the lip of the fall. He gets down on his belly and shines the light down across a spill of tumbled rock. He can't tell if it goes all the way down, but it's a start and the climb looks easy enough. He can scramble back up if it doesn't pan out.

Dean takes a breath and asks the question. "How're you doing down there, kiddo?"

Sam's silent long enough that Dean starts to— _not freak out; he's not freaking out, he's got this totally under contro_ l—worry a little. But after a moment—too long—Sam's voice comes back, "Not…not so great, man."

"The leg?" He knows it's not. Or rather, he knows it's more than the leg, because if it was only the leg, Sam wouldn't have told Dean that his leg was broken. Convoluted, but that's Winchester logic in a nutshell. Dean flicks the safety on and tucks the gun into the back of his pants, though not without misgivings.

"No."

Smaller stones skitter and fall as Dean eases himself carefully over the edge. He hopes Sam isn't close enough to get hit by them. "C'mon Sam…" He tries to keep the strain out of his voice. "Talk to me."

"No, I'm… I'm okay, Dean. Don't… I'm just tired, you know?"

"Sam. _Sam_." Dean sticks the flashlight between his teeth and starts scrambling down the rocks faster than before, reckless, heedless, half-blind between the narrow beam of light and the pressing darkness.

 _Don't you dare_ , he thinks. _Don't you fucking even dare._

His sense of distance is screwed; he thinks he's about seven feet down when he slips. It's a disorienting whirling crash—head, knee, elbow, ankle—down an unknown distance until he comes to a star-filled and sudden halt.

"Dean?" he hears Sam calling again and again, rapid and frantic. _"Dean?"_

"Yeah," he mumbles, flat on his back and dazed. He gets his elbow under him—damn, that hurts—and says again, louder, "Yeah. Sam, I'm all right."

Suddenly there are hands on him, fumbling over his arm and face and neck. Dean shies—which is a really bad idea, as far as his head's concerned—and grabs them. "Dean?"

"Sam?"

Sam huffs laughter against Dean's skin. "Nah man, it's the Cookie Monster." Sam turns his wrists in Dean's loosened grip, pushing the bone against the weaker thumb joint to force Dean to let him go. It's an old joke and lame, from when Sam was afraid of The Thing in the Closet, but Dean still finds it in him to chuckle, his throat tight with relief that Sam's still enough himself to _make_ jokes. "You okay?"

Dean sits up some more, biting back a groan. "Give me a minute to figure it out," he says. Fast on the heels of his words, the creature roars again. Not near, but not nearly far enough away, either. Dean had almost forgotten it trying to get to Sam.

"We might not have a minute, Dean," Sam points out unnecessarily in the irritating way of younger brothers.

***

It goes pear-shaped almost from the start.

It's supposed to be recon. All the attacks have happened in the hills around the town, thick wooded and relatively desolate despite their popularity with hikers. There're supposed to be caves up here as well, too narrow, too colorless and uninteresting for the tourist trade but spanning unknown depths and distances.

"My dad used to reckon you could walk from one side the county t'other, if you had the time and enough food," the clerk at the motel said, when they'd asked. "Now. Will that be cash or charge…Mr. Weiss—or do you prefer Eric?"

Sam is pissy, fretting about their lack of research, about Dean's cavalier attitude towards the whole thing, about being in this town at all. "It's bad enough we go haring after every random bogey from here to the Pacific," Sam grouses and kicks through drifted and crackling leaves, "we don't have to compound it by being stupid about it."

"Look, you went through every moldy, dusty prehistoric book in this burg and there was nothing," Dean snaps finally. "What were we supposed to do, tell the next family that lost a daughter or son, 'gee dudes, tough break; we needed more research'?"

"So instead some stranger gets the _very great pleasure_ of trying to track down _our_ dear old Dad—and good luck on that, by the way—to let him know we died in their place," Sam says sourly. "Brilliant plan, Dean."

Dean stops so abruptly his back twinges. "So what do you want to do, dude?" he demands. "Because I'm open to sugge…"

Sam's eyes widen when Dean clears and raises his gun, standing and staring like the bonehead he can sometimes be, like Dean would ever draw on _him_. "Sam, get down!"

At least Sam still obeys commands; he kisses dirt and Dean fires a shot at the _enormous_ blur of brown…what the heck _is_ that, even? Fur?...that's hurtling it's way towards them. Unfortunately, it's the rock salt gun.

Dean fires anyway, hoping to break its charge and then lets the gun fall, already ripping at the other pistol shoved through his belt. Sam's rolling out of the field of fire; Dean strides forward, putting himself between the _it_ and his brother.

For all the good the rock salt does, Dean might as well have spit. The other gun is snagged on something, and Dean knows he's going to get hit. Hard. _Might as well make it worth it_ , he thinks and abandons the gun in favor of the knife sheathed at his side.

He hears Sam shout, loud and agonized, "Dean!" and then it's on him and he doesn't remember anything else.

He thinks that's probably merciful.

***

"Let me see your leg," Dean says and forces himself up. He can't help the groan, though. Or the nausea, sick and cold in the pit of his stomach. It's hard to tell in the dark, but it feels like the cave swings wildly around him, sound swimming in and out like a bullroarer.

Sam's laugh is brittle. "I don't think you're going to see much of anything, Dean." But there's the drag of cloth on stone and Sam's breath catches unevenly as he comes closer obediently.

Dean isn't sure why he closes his eyes to check out Sam's leg; it's darker than the inside of Jonah's whale anyway, but he finds it easier to match the image in his mind against the information his fingers report back to him.

It's not a bad break; the bone's barely out of alignment and hasn't broken the skin. It should be easy to reset, although working out a good splint's going to be interesting. Lucky he brought the longer stakes in the pack. They won't be nearly long enough, but it's something.

"How bad is it?" Sam's breath still sounds very loud, rushed, more breathless than can be accounted for by pain. His non-broken leg jitters restlessly, scraping over the stone.

"It's a clean break," Dean says, putting one hand over Sam's shaking knee. When Dean touches him, Sam lets out a breath like a sigh and the shaking stops.

"Dean. It's… It's not just the leg."

 _One thing at a time_ , Dean tells himself. "Another break?" His voice cracks on the question; he clears his throat, trying to make it sound like that was his intention the whole time.

"No…I think it's just a dislocation. But I can't pop it back myself. I tried."

 _He's okay. We're okay. Don't freak out, Dean_. "That left shoulder again?"

Sam swallows and Dean's hands twitch on Sam's denim-clad leg. "Yeah."

"Okay." Dean's throat tightens as he forces his voice to come out even. "One thing at a time. Let's do the leg first. Ready?"

Sam's muscles clench and very slowly relax. "Y—"

Dean doesn't let him get any further, doesn't give him time to anticipate or think about it; he just grabs and _wrenches_ just like Dad showed/told him years ago. And just like Dad, Sam lets out a strangled half-scream, lifting up off the ground. Quick as anything, Dean grabs a handful of over-large denim and jerks Sam down before he can pull the leg out of alignment again.

Sam sobs and curses in a deep, growling voice. Groping blind in his bag for the stakes, Dean has to admit he's sort of impressed. He hadn't thought Sammy even _knew_ some of those words.

The stakes are going to be shoddy as hell as splints, especially when tied in place with bits of Dean's T-shirt torn into strips, but it's what they've got and Sam doesn't complain. Like it or not, he's a Winchester too.

And maybe that's the frigging problem.

***

Dean wakes up to Sam's concerned and upside down face over his and he puts up a hand to push Sam away from him, growling, "I can't _believe_ you let it get away."

"How do you know I let it get away?" Sam demands, scooting back on his haunches as Dean sits up gingerly. It feels like the time he got tackled by Jimmy Sommerville that summer in Gainesville. Kid had to have been three hundred pounds if he was an ounce and at only fifteen years old.

Dean just gives Sam a look.

"Dean, you were _hurt_!" Sam says, throwing up his hands. As if that explains everything. Sometimes Dean wonders where the hell Sam was, when they were growing up. It doesn't seem like it was much the same place Dean was.

"I'm not hurt," Dean says, disgusted. "Look, there's not even any blood. And now it's gone. What the hell was it, anyway?"

"I don't know," Sam snaps back, starting to get pissy now that he knows Dean isn't going to die on him. Which he should have known in the first place, but whatever. "I don't have my _research_."

Dean hoists himself to his feet and sways a little. Sam, who rises a second behind him, puts a steadying hand on Dean's elbow and Dean jerks away from him. "I got it," Dean says, huffing. Sam rolls his eyes, but he hands Dean the gun he'd thrown in the grass without further comment, sparing Dean from having to lean over. Dean takes the pistol and swaps out the rock salt rounds for silver tips. "C'mon," he says, when he thinks he can move—run—without falling over his own feet. "It's getting away."

"Dean—" Sam's voice is sharp, still worried. He sighs. "It's already gotten away!"

 _Move_ , Dean tells his legs. He licks his lips and glances at Sam. "Not yet, it hasn't."

Sam throws his hands up in the air.

***

"C'mon," Dean says, putting his shoulder under Sam's. "Up we go."

He suspects he's concussed. He suspects Sam is too. Not that it's a first time for either of them, you understand, but he keeps thinking of something Caleb used to say, when he'd take them out on long survival treks through the mountains while Dad was off hunting without them.

_Thing about getting injured is this: 'less you get medical attention right away, the likelihood is that you'll keep on getting hurt, because you're less able to defend yourself. So your best bet is to just not get hurt in the first place._

_That's great, Caleb_ , Dean thinks. _I'll sure keep that in mind._

Sam's cursing in a weak and shaky voice as they scramble and slither to get upright, flinching as Dean's arm snakes around and then again when it jars. Dean grimly adds _rib, probably cracked_ to the injury list. "You're all right," he says, somewhere between encouragement and rebuke. "C'mon Sam. Let's get you out of here. Don't suppose you saw where my flashlight fell?"

"N-no." Sam's hand tightens on Dean's shirt, fisting in the cloth and brushing against what Dean's sure is going to be a hell of a bruise by tomorrow. "I was trying to figure out where your clumsy butt fell."

Dean mock-sighs. "You have no sense of priorities. No matter. I think…" He bends at an angle that none of him really likes and rummages through his backpack by touch. No. No. No. Ow. No. Yes. He pulls out another flashlight and thumbs the switch. Weak yellow light almost blinds him after the velvet darkness of before. Sam flinches, still half-supported by Dean's off hand.

There are flares in the bag too; Dean hadn't been sure what they were going to run into and so he'd sort of over-packed, Sam kvetching the whole time about the extra weight. Bet he'd shut the hell up the next time, Dean thinks with dark satisfaction. _Assuming there is a next time._

"Here." He shoves the flashlight at Sam and tucks a handful of flares in his back pocket and Sam's. "Think you can shoot?"

"I can shoot," Sam answers doubtfully. "Don't know if I could hit anything."

 _Great_ , Dean thinks. _Just freaking great._

"Well, let's hope the monster doesn't know that, then. C'mon. Let's find our guns."

Sam tilts the flashlight in Dean's direction and black spots dance in Dean's vision as he averts his face too late. Sam sounds both incredulous and on the verge of laughter when he says, "You dropped your gun?"

Dean growls. "Kind of falling at the time, Sam."

"You, the _Great_ Dean Winchester…"

"Oh, shut up."

***

Dean lost its trail for good somewhere in the upper meadow; it was just too damn fast, loping on long legs and using its forearms for an occasional assist, sort of like a gorilla.

"Y…You know," Dean pants, "I think I have seen something like it before."

"Oh yeah?" Sam sounds breathless too, but not so much he can't manage a thick layer of skepticism. Dean thinks Sam would probably have to be dead before that happened.

 _…and let's not think too much or too hard about anyone dying here, eh?_ Dean reminds himself. "Yeah," he huffs back. "In _Big Trouble in Little China_."

"Oh. My. Goodness." Sam slows to a trot and they fan out in the thigh high, flower-dotted grass. "That thing's done run you stupid."

"Ha ha," Dean says, not so far out of range that he can't swat Sam on the back of the head.

"Ow!" Sam ducks aside, trips over his own abnormally large feet and goes tumbling into a clump of sad and battered looking bushes.

Dean rolls his eyes. "Smooth one, Sam. Good to know that year of soccer helped your footwork like it was supposed to."

Sam doesn't answer and doesn't come thrashing out of the bushes the way Dean expects him to, sheepish and flailing. "Sam?" Dean calls. Cold and unease prickle down his neck and raise goosebumps on his skin. He brings his gun half to bear and takes two cautious sideways steps towards where Sam disappeared. "Sam? You all right, little brother?"

Still no answer.

Dean edges up to the bushes and pushes them aside with his foot. Darkness, sudden and fathomless, looms in front of him, black enough to be oddly dazzling after the flooding sunlight of the field. A cave. He doesn't see Sam but in the thick sloppy clay-like mud that cakes the cave's mouth—scuffed and half obscured by the passage of something—someone—he sees a footprint. Five round toes, an oval for the ball and another for the heel. Five smaller indentations he recognizes would be made by talon tips. He puts his own foot next to it for reference; it's half again as big.

Dean does some quick calculations in his head and doesn't like the answers he comes up with. He reaches behind him and unzips his backpack, fishes inside for his flashlight. "Sam?"

***

"Dean…? Where are you going?" Sam asks when Dean leads them away from the rock tumble that got him down there. "Scratch that—where are we going?"

"I'm looking for another way out," Dean says, a little surprised Sam had to ask. He feels a little better with his gun but they're a long way from out.

"What about the way you came?"

Dean worries about just how hard Sam hit his head in the fall. "Sam… Your leg is broken. Maybe your ribs too. There's no way we're getting you up a vertical climb or through some of the other passages I came through. We gotta find another way out of here."

"Dean—" And now Sam's voice seesaws between scared and trying-to-be-reasonable. The throb of Dean's head winches up another few notches and he fights against irritation. Sam pulls against Dean's drag forward, forcing them both to a halt. "That's crazy. We can't… You don't even know there _is_ another way out."

"Guy at the hotel said the hills were riddled with caves," Dean says dismissively, ignoring the cold pinch in his own belly at the thought.

"He also said you could walk from one end of the county to the other!" Sam hisses and then winces as it pulls and aches in his wounds. "There's miles of caves and no one knows where they go or where they come out. We're going to get _lost_."

"Fine," Dean says. He ushers Sam towards the rocks and then steps away. "Climb."

Sam nearly falls when Dean moves away from him, robbing him of support on that side. Dean can't see his face—can only track Sam's movement by the bob and weave of the flashlight and the back glow on Sam's hand and forearm—and he's just as glad. Sam's irritation is like the burn of jalapeño on his skin. He imagines the glare that goes with it would flay the skin off of him. Still, Sam's nothing if not stubborn. He hears the catch and race of Sam's breath and the dragging, hopping slur of Sam's gait.

The skin of his back ripples and quakes with the awareness of the darkness and open space at their back, space that could be filled with any kind of danger, including the one they came here to kill. Nonetheless, he forces himself to be still, to listen and wait while Sam pants and struggles to hoist himself the four feet onto the first rock.

He does it. Eventually, while time ticks away from them. Sam's a Winchester and stubborn as any of them; of course he does, but he tries, scrabbling and whimpering the whole way while Dean keeps an ear out for the creature, chafing at the delay. But the thing about Sam is that you can't rush him. Finally, Sam drops back down, panting. "Fine," he says ugly and grudging.

Dean sighs. "Sam. We're already lost. Now, if you've got a better idea, I'm more than happy to hear it. But otherwise, we're finding some other way out."

Sam's hand comes out of the darkness and reaches for him, fingers knotting hard in Dean's shirt. Dean steps into Sam, shoulders interlocking, his own hand taking hold of Sam's belt loop under complicated layers of shirts. Sam's back is slightly damp with exertion; his whole body feels several degrees warmer. They wobble and balance for a minute, working to find equilibrium. Then Sam sighs. "So let's get to it."

***

"Sam?" Dean says again.

"Here," Sam's voice comes back, slightly doubled but calm and Dean opens his mouth to soften the harsh exhalation of his relief. Pissed is quick to catch up and take its place, though.

"Dude. What the hell?"

There's a sword slash of white-yellow light that cuts across the dimness and into Dean's face. Dean throws his hand up, squinting and tearing up, blinking furiously. "Sam!" he growls.

"Sorry," Sam apologizes. "You weren't quite where I thought you were. I think it came in here." The flashlight beam splashes down, illuminated another couple giant footprints in the silty filth crusting the floor.

"Well, go on with your bad self, Sherlock," Dean says, panning his own flashlight around.

"You're such a jerk," Sam growls. "And I still think we're totally going to get killed and it will be all your fault."

"…and you'll haunt me forever," Dean finishes. "Yeah, Sam. I remember." The light glitters off something, a diamond refraction of sharp white and rainbow afterimages. Dean goes closer to look. It's a barrette. A cheap thing, the kind you can get in any drugstore, made of pot-metal and wrought in the shape of a butterfly. Paste jewels sparkle on the filigree wings. There are long strands of dark hair caught in the barrette's teeth, the ends matted and clotted with dried blood. Dean drops it hastily, wiping his hands almost unconsciously on his jeans.

Several things happen at about the same time.

"Sam?" Dean looks up and away from the grisly remnant and as he does, a shadow crosses his peripheral vision, left to right.

Sam's light zigzags wildly, flashing into Dean's eyes again and blinding him. Dean throws up his hand again, his night-vision destroyed. Sam shouts, loud and danger-filled, _"Dean!"_

Something roars, _way_ too close.

***

"Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"Are we there yet?"

Dean inhales sharply, somewhere between bursting into hysterical laughter and popping Sam in the mouth. He decides the last thing they need is Sam with another injury. "Dude. Don't make me turn this car around."

They both snicker. Then Sam laughs. That's it for Dean; he starts laughing too and then it's just _on_. Sam grabs onto and slides down a stalagmite to the floor, gasping and whooping. Dean's not far behind, his legs weak and swimmy, his stomach aching.

It's not even all that funny, but after hours of trudging through the lightless galleries and fissures of dark, layered stone, Dean thinks anything would be pretty damn hilarious. He clicks the flashlight off to conserve the battery and laughs until tears squeeze from his tired eyes. God, when this is over, he's going to shower for hours and sleep for _days_. Right after he beats the bloody pulp out of Sam for being so damned stupid.

Dean scrubs his eyes until they hurt. Well. Hurt more. Dimly, he's aware he has a headache from squinting. It throbs and leaves dull splotchy colors in his field of vision.

"Dean?"

Dean raises his head. "Yeah?"

"I'm sorry."

"Sam—" Dean cuts him off. "Don't, okay?"

"No," Sam answers, listening to Dean about as much as he ever does. "I'm not sorry I did it, Dean. I… I'd do it exactly the same over again…"

"Why do you have to _do_ this every time one of us gets a tiny little scrape, Sam?" Dean moans, thunking his head back against the stalagmite. "It's' going to be _fine_ ; we're going to get out of here and…"

"…I'm just sorry I worried you."

"I'm not worried," Dean says. "Do I sound worried? I know we're going to get the hell out of here and then I'm going to trounce your ass six ways from Sunday for such a rookie move."

"Rookie move?" Sam sounds outraged. "I saved _your_ butt, bud."

"Yeah, well…" Dean plants his feet and shoves his way up the stalagmite to stand again. "If you hadn't blinded me with the stupid flashlight, maybe I wouldn't have needed saving. Besides, I had it under control." He counts the two and a half steps back to Sam and then kicks lightly where he thinks Sam's boot should be. It is. "C'mon. Break time's over."

"Dean—" Sam sighs loudly. "I…I don't think I can, yet."

"Don't think you can what?"

"Get up. Walk." Sam's voice is unwilling. Dean clicks his flashlight back on and shines it on Sam's face. Sam flinches and throws his hand up to shield his eyes, but not before Dean gets a good look at the dark circles under his eyes, or the way they stand out against the sick yellow-pale of his skin, like his tan's just a layer of drugstore bronzer. Sam's hair is wet through with sweat, clumped and pointy at the turned up ends and he's shivering. Sam squints up at Dean past the spread fan of his fingers, grimaces and says, "Just give me…give me a couple more minutes."

Dean sits down next to Sam, boots gritting a little on the stone. "Nah," he says. "You're right. We can rest here for a while." He unslings the backpack from one arm and goes digging through it again, coming up with two bent and mangled Power Bars. "Here. You should eat something."

"Not hungry," Sam says, sounding a little breathless again. There's a faint slur to the sound that makes Dean worry about fluid in Sam's lungs. It's an effort not to mash the Power Bars between his fingers. "And I don't think those really count as food anyway."

"Always such a picky eater," Dean chides but doesn't argue. He pulls a squirt bottle from the bag and hands that to Sam instead. "Drink," he says in a tone that brooks no argument.

Sam's fingers are shaking as they fumble over Dean's to take the bottle from him. He drinks loudly and thirstily and Dean tries not to think about how dry his own mouth is or how long it's been since he's had anything to drink. He's still got the bottle of holy water and Sam should have water in his pack, if they didn't shatter in the fall, but without knowing how long they're going to be down here… And Sammy needs it more.

Sam tries to hand it back to him and Dean pushes it back. "Keep drinking," he says. "You're dehydrated."

"I'm okay," Sam says and it sounds anything but convincing.

"I know you are." Dean clicks the flashlight off again and leans his head back against the stalagmite. "Drink."

Sam does but through a mouthful of water he mumbles, "M'not a kid, Dean."

"Never said you were, Sammy." He didn't do that on purpose; he really didn't. Any more than he means the next words that come tumbling out of his mouth. "I just… I don't get why you did it."

Sam chokes and then coughs, wet and hacking. Dean thumps him on the back until Sam tilts sideways and catches his wrist with a strangled, "Ribs."

"Heh. Yeah. Sorry."

They're quiet for a while, while Sam wheezes and breathes. Dean thinks about eating one of the Power Bars. He's hungry, which probably isn't helping his headache at all. But the bar will just make him thirsty. He turns it in his hands idly, the plastic sleeve crinkling and crackling.

"I did it because you're my brother, Dean," Sam says suddenly, out of the dark.

"What?" Thinking of other things, it takes Dean's ears a moment to catch up. When they do, he wishes they hadn't. "Oh, _Jeez_ , Sam—"

"No, Dean. You asked." Sam reaches over, awkward because he has to go cross body and fumbles until his fingers touch Dean's wrist. Even expecting it, Dean flinches away.

"Maybe I didn't think you'd answer," he grumbles.

Sam snorts. "Shows what you know about me."

***

Dean has only one endless/too-short, panicked second to register cup-sized eyes like rounds of green flame— _green flame_!—too close and too fast to be fought or fled. Reflex has him bringing his gun up even though he knows he's not going to make it in time; at the same time, his body's bracing for impact…but when it comes, it's not from the direction he expects.

Sam is suddenly _there_ , shoving him hard out of the creature's path. All that new upper body strength—Dean goes sprawling, the breath knocked out of him. Training has its effects, though; he's rolling even as he bumps and scrapes over the stone.

The thing roars, a huge dizzying noise that echoes and rebounds off the rock, clamoring louder and louder until it almost feels like a physical thing, beating against Dean's skin and head, making his blood vessels pound and ache.

Sam dropped his flashlight; by its glow, Dean suddenly sees the drop off, the water-smoothed stone falling away and sinking into unknown darkness only inches from where he'd been standing seconds before. Sam and the creature—only half-guessed-at shadows and movements of air current—crisscross in front of the edge. As Dean watches, searching vainly for a clean shot, he hears Sam cry out once, sharp and piercing, and then he and the creature are falling, tumbling over the edge and down.

***

Dean wonders if it's been long enough that he can trust Sam to sleep. He tallies all the reasons it's a bad idea; the concussion's top among them, but including their dwindling 'supplies'—never intended for any kind of serious caving—the totally unknown length of the path in front of them, the _creature_ , and the rest of Sam's injuries, which could be a lot worse than either of them know. But the truth is that Sam's at the hard end of his strength and Dean just doesn't know if Sam can make it without some rest.

_…of course he'll make it, even if you have to carry him out of here. Don't be stupider than you are, Dean._

"Hey," Dean says, as the silence stretches. He tries to make it sound offhand, knowing how Sam is. "You should try and get some sleep."

"What?" A soft slur of hair and cloth as Sam turns his head.

Dean's nail scrapes back and forth across a hangnail on his thumb, tearing the skin. "Sleep," he says again. "I'll keep watch."

He hears—actually _hears_ —Sam open his mouth and inhale. Dean's shoulders tighten up, worsening the ache. Then Sam sighs. "You sure?"

Dean deflates and his fingernail digs into the skin so hard he feels blood well up around it. "Yeah. I got it."

"Not long," Sam says quickly. "I just… Twenty minutes?"

"Sure," Dean lies easily and seamlessly.

Sam's voice is quieter when he says, "Okay." There's a scrape and slither as Sam eases down on the rock, shuffling his own backpack around—probably for a makeshift pillow. Sam's breath gets more ragged, louder, but he doesn't say anything and neither does Dean.

Dean fumbles some bullets from his pocket, checks and reloads the gun by touch. His fingers know what to do, even if he can't see it and the simple straightforwardness of it helps. He lets it rest on his thigh, his fingers loose around the grip, ready but not tense. He practices his reach for it a couple times, gauging how accurate his memory of it is, how fast he can bring it to bear. He wonders if ( _when_ ) the creature comes after them whether he'll be able to see its glowing eyes in the darkness or whether like a cat, they can only be seen when there's some glimmer of light, however faint. He practices more with gun and flashlight, miming thumbing the on switch without actually doing so.

"You shouldn't have done it, Sammy," he sighs quietly, after Sam's breath has mostly evened and deepened. "Not for me." The sourness in his stomach deepens and he swallows hard.

"Of course for you," Sam says, startling Dean. "You've got to stop this, Dean; acting like your life is so much less valuable than mine."

Dean doesn't say anything.

"Well, it's not," Sam says. "Either we're in this together and we look out for each other or it's never going to work and both of us are going to get killed. What was I supposed to do, let it kill you?"

Dean doesn't say anything.

Sam sighs, frustrated and strangled. "You are the most aggravating, pig-headed…"

"Winchester," Dean inserts.

" _Winchester_ ," Sam agrees viciously. He sounds considerably less pleased about it than Dean.

"Go to sleep, Sam," Dean says.

Sam huffs. "You're _welcome_ , Dean."

***

_"Sam!"_ Dean yells so hard his throat hurts, rushing to the edge and hanging over. He flashes his light down the shaft, but it's too deep, too far. It doesn't touch bottom. _"Sam?"_

_…not dead. Please God, not dead…_

"…Dean?" It's so faint, at first Dean isn't sure it's not his desperate imagination. "Dean?"

"Sam?"

"Here." If it's a hallucination, Dean can't tell the difference between it and reality.

"You okay?" He flashes his light down the shaft again swinging it back and forth. "Can you see me?"

"…Sorta. …faint… Dean…not…" Only fragments of sound come up from below, none of them clear enough to make any sense.

Dean swings the beam around the sides of the shaft, looking for a way down. The walls are mostly smooth, no good hand or footholds and too much distance between the few there are. He's not getting down this way.

He looks around for something to use as an anchor before he remembers the rope is in Sam's pack and swears some more.

He leans over the edge again. "Sam? Sam! I'm coming. I've got to find a way down, but I'm coming. Stay put, okay?"

"…kay…"

He doesn't know if the word—well, sort of word—is real or only wishful thinking. No. _No._ Of course it's real. Because Sam is just fine, and as soon as he gets down there, he'll see that.

 _Stupid, stupid, stupid_ , he thinks.

He shines the light around the cave walls. There's got to be a way down.

***

Dean doesn't know what wakes him.

One step back: Dean didn't even know he was asleep until he wakes up. And _then_ he doesn't know what woke him. He feels fuzzy with too little sleep and the subterranean chill has sunken into his aching bones and muscles making every movement an agony. So he doesn't move. But it's more than that.

The hackles are up on the nape of his neck; he feels twitchy and tense with the awareness of…something. Danger. He reaches for the gun. His fingers are uncooperative with cold; it takes some effort to close his hand, get a good grip. With his off hand, he reaches across and touches Sam.

Sam's curled in on himself, huddled with cold, but his side rises and falls with reassuring regularity under Dean's touch. He digs his fingertips in gently and feels Sam stir. "Mmm?"

"Shh," Dean hisses. He leans down and puts his mouth close to Sam's ear. "We're in trouble."

"What is it?" Sam also murmurs in the same unvoiced whisper, practically inaudible from more than a few inches away.

"Don't know. Something."

"Dean—"

"Shhh," Dean says again. He rocks back and gets his feet under him, puts one hand down on the gritty stone.

The attack comes without warning and in silence.

And he's slow, he knows that; he's moving too slow. But it's still just startling to feel a sudden _presence_ of heat and unseen bulk loom up on your left and you only have the time to barely register it, only time to hear the soft _snort_ of its breath before you're suddenly flat on your back and sliding across the stone and _something's_ teeth are scraping against your neck, held back only by your arm across _its_ throat.

Things fragment a bit after that.

Sam shouts, "Dean!" and then _whoosh_ and then the reek of sulfur and paper and chemicals and suddenly Dean can see in the colors of blood, flare light. The creature on top of him is no better or no prettier for being well lit; the huge slavering maw and rudimentary eyes, half-hidden behind matted, reeking strands of monkey-brown fur.

His gun hand is pinned. He's pinned; he can't even bring his legs up to protect his stomach or get a kick in. It does _something_ impossible and serpentine with its neck and body and then its enormous chisel teeth are closing on his arm. Dean shouts. He can't help it. Claws rake his shoulders, parting both skin and cloth and its hind legs scrape and scrabble against his calves and ankles.

All at once, there's a gout of steaming hot liquid. The creature—without giving up an inch of its teeth in Dean's arm, dammit—growls, a noise that turns high-pitched and weak and the fight seems to go out of it. Finally, it goes limp and Dean's head falls back on the stone, not sure what happened and too tired to care.

"Dean!" Sam's voice. It seems to come from very far away, but when Dean opens his eyes—and when did he close them?—he can see Sam over the thing's shoulder, trying to pry its mouth apart. "Dean!"

 _S'okay, Sammy_ , he wants to say, but even that seems like more effort than he can summon.

Sam curses and yells and Dean whimpers as every jerk and pull tugs at his bleeding arm. _Oh wow_ , he thinks, looking at it—it looks almost black in the flare light— _that's a lot of blood_. Hurts like a bitch too.

 _Don't you do it, Dean_ , Sam says and Dean wants to reach up and dig a finger in his ear, because he can see Sam right there and yet it sounds like he's even further away than a minute ago. _Don't you dare. Stay with me. C'mon, Dean. You're no quitter; don't start now. You're so proud of being a damn Winchester—act like one!_

And that stings. Almost as much as his arm as Sam beats the thing's jaw with the butt of his gun until it breaks and splinters. Sam pulls its teeth out of Dean's arm and closes his fingers _tight_ over the gushing wounds. The pressure _hurts_ and Dean finds himself hurtling out of that soft cloud and into the _coldowhurtsloststuckhurt_ of the real world again, crying and cursing and screaming, trying to pull away. Sam's strong though and between that and the massive weight of the thing still on his hips and legs, Dean ain't going nowhere.

"Dean," Sam says. "Dean. You're okay. It's okay. Calm down. Ease down."

Dean wants to yell at Sam. Of _course_ he's all right; he's always all right. But it hurts too much for that, so he just bites down on his lip until the blood in his mouth mixes with the smell of the rest of the blood.

"I don't know what happened," he says finally. He's a little alarmed at how weak his voice sounds and tries to get his good elbow under him to sit up. Sam pushes him back again.

"I slit its throat," Sam says. "It's okay. It's dead."

"Oh," Dean says. He tries to process that. The only part that makes any sense is _dead_. He likes that part. "Okay. Good."

"Dean?" Sam flicks on his flashlight and shines it right into Dean's eyes. Dean flinches, but he can't make his head move to look away. "Dean?"

 _I'll get us out of here, Sam_ , Dean thinks. His eyes close and the light of the flashlight shines pink and orange through the lids.

***

_Epilogue the First._

Dean wakes up. It's not pleasant. Of course, it's not the first time he's woken feeling halfway to dead either. So he's got that going for him. Plus, half-dead isn't all dead.

His second thought is, _Hey. There's a fire_. It _stinks_ to high heaven, but it's giving off heat and light and that's not nothing.

His third is the recognition that there's another body curled around his back, the side not near the fire, radiating a softer gentler heat into his cold flesh.

"Dude," he says finally. "Are you… Are you _cuddling_ with me?"

 _"Dude_. Shut up and get over it." Sam sounds sleepy and sort of punk, but more amused than anything else. "Your clothes are shredded and you're hypothermic."

"No, Sam, I'm the _hot_ one," Dean says. His lids are already getting heavy again and he closes them.

Sam laughs, then winces.

***

_Epilogue the Second._

Dean doesn't even want to guess what they look like when they wade out of the river, out of the cave and into the day.

They stumble a few hundred yards and then he lets go of Sam and Sam lets go of him and they collapse into the grass in sort of slow motion, faces turned up to the bright midday sun. The ground is warm under his back. He breathes, smelling grass and dirt and _outside_. It's the best thing ever.

"How far do you think we are from the car?" Sam wonders aloud.

Dean raises his arm and points. "Nine point six miles that way."

He can feel Sam goggling, even with his eyes closed. "There's no way you could know that. You're kidding, right?"

"I totally am," Dean agrees.

Sam breathes a soft sigh of relief and Dean gives it a couple minutes before he admits, "It's really only about five miles and more southwesterly."

**Author's Note:**

> Written for AHR for one of the Sweet Charity auctions of 2006. Her prompt was: _gen, Sam, orthopedic trauma: I would love a fic where Dean sees for himself that no matter what he thinks, Sam does believe that Dean's life has value - and has as much as his own does._ Beta work by: sixersfandre, mona1347, and jebbypal.


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